While speaking with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about Crowded House’s eighth studio album, Gravity Stairs, vocalist/guitarist (and primary songwriter) Neil Finn noted that, “People have said that there’s a dreamy sort of semi-psychedelic atmosphere that runs through the record. It’s not something we ever discussed, but...we were excited about having layers and atmospheres through the record.” That quality is especially pronounced in the calming “Black Water, White Circle”, opener “Magic Piano” and closer “Night Song”. The latter two tracks essay the joys and struggles of the creative process, with “Night Song” inspired in part by an unknown man talking to himself outside the songwriter’s hotel room at 3 am (Neil recorded the one-way conversation on his iPhone, which plays underneath the music). As with 2021’s Dreamers Are Waiting, Neil is joined on Gravity Stairs by his sons Elroy (drums) and multi-instrumentalist Liam, alongside original bassist Nick Seymour and keyboardist Mitchell Froom, who produced the band’s first three records. The psychedelic sheen that washes over the lush, melodic collection of songs reflects the increased input of Neil’s bandmates. “I think we got really obsessed with allowing everybody’s viewpoint,” he told Lowe. The album’s familial ties deepen on “Some Greater Plan (for Claire)”, co-written by and featuring Neil’s brother Tim. Its flourishes of Mediterranean-inspired acoustic guitar are befitting a song inspired by their father Richard’s brief romance with a woman in Florence during the war; the track represents the idea of redemption, that happiness and love can still flourish even in dark times. The LP’s cover was drawn by bassist Seymour and pays homage to The Beatles’ Revolver. Its title, meanwhile, is inspired by a set of heavy stone stairs near Neil’s holiday home in Greece, and the fact they feel more difficult to climb than regular stairs. Representing the symbolic struggle to ascend both in life and creatively (“I began to sense my own weight walking up the gravity stairs,” Neil sings in “Magic Piano”), Crowded House are clearly still willing to put in that extra effort.